On June 23, Norfolk Southern President and CEO Alan Shaw joined Sara Eisen of CNBC’s Squawk on the Street to discuss what the company is doing to make it right in East Palestine, Norfolk Southern's leadership role in the industry to set the gold standard for rail safety, and the U.S. economic outlook from the perspective of rail.

Watch Shaw’s conversation with Eisen by clicking the image below:

Please see the following key excerpts from Shaw during the interview:

Service, Productivity, Growth

“I’m absolutely focused on our recovery efforts in East Palestine. I’m also really focused on our long-term strategy for value creation at Norfolk Southern that we laid out last December. It is really a balance between service, productivity, and growth, and leveraging the unique strengths of our franchise and the secular macro trends that are really driving growth into our region.”

Gold Standard for Safety

“Norfolk Southern will be the gold standard for safety in the rail industry.”

“Safety rolls up under operational excellence, and that’s what we’re driving at Norfolk Southern. The discipline to run a safe, reliable, and efficient railroad all flows together, and that’s part of our focus in the long term.”

“Right now, you see our service metrics improving, that helps our cost structure, that also gives us more capacity for volume growth. So, when you look at our weekly figures, you see network fluidity improving, and you see volumes recovering as well.”

Economic Outlook

“We have a unique seat and a unique view into the U.S. economy with over 5,000 customers. Let’s talk about the consumer. Certainly, the consumer is pressured, but frankly, the consumer may be a little bit more resilient than we thought. You saw that in the housing market numbers, and you saw that in the retail sales numbers. The inventory destocking may have hit an end. And, as I talk to our ocean carriers, they see an opportunity for growth and volume later this year. And, as I talk to the CEO’s of our consumer-facing markets, they’re continuing to invest in long-term growth, because it’s only a matter of when the consumer recovers.”

“In the first four months of this year, new factory construction in the U.S. is tracking at about $190 billion, which is 3 times the annual average in the 2010’s.”

“We’re in a super-cycle for non-residential construction… if you want to participate in the U.S. electric vehicle market, [companies] know they need to invest in production in the U.S. So, that’s something that’s new, and that gives us a lot of encouragement for our strategy going forward.”

“We serve over 60 percent of the consumption in the U.S., and we serve over 50 percent of the manufacturing, including over 50 percent of the manufacturing of U.S. light vehicles… and we have the strongest, most powerful intermodal franchise in the East… and we have a strategy that aligns with our unique franchise strengths and a franchise that faces the fastest-growing segments of the U.S. economy.”

“East Coast ports have done a fantastic job of infrastructure improvements, and certainly we’ve participated in that with our infrastructure improvements in our intermodal franchise. They’ve done a good job with labor negotiations, and frankly, [Norfolk Southern and East Coast port partners] have done a really good job of partnering in each other’s mutual success.”

“Rail is always going to have a cost advantage vs. truck, we’re going to have a capacity advantage vs. truck, and a sustainability advantage vs. truck - which is why we’re really focused on closing that service gap relative to truck.”